Slaves. By the thousands, by the millions, they throng the barren waste. The rattling grate of chains on stone echoes from the desolate heights.
Free them! Come and save the captives! But wait--see here a strange sight. The slave holds the chains--they are not locked. Yet still he toils on in servitude to the cruel master.
"Come--drop your chains and you are free! Rise up and breathe in liberty!" The cry rings out across the lands. But none will rise and none will look. On they toil, as their master laughs in evil pleasure. They are his as sure as if he paid for them. For he knows why they will not flee:
These chains are but a shadow of the chains within. Each one has willingly bound his heart to serve him. They are sold out--committed and secure, for him to use as he shall please. Each one believes the same lie. As they drag their great burdens, they think they do it for themselves. They see their labor as liberty, and the offer of freedom seems a trick to draw them under bondage. What can break these deathly chains? How can one escape who refuses to be free?
They love their work, though it is killing them. They cling to their chains for safety and comfort.
The Pits. That is what we call those lands. We, who live in peace in the free lands. But we have always been free, for we had no part in the rebellion. We have never touched those chains they so willingly bear. Our king is not of their kind, nor yet of ours. But he is raising his troops to free them. He sends his spies to live among them, to offer them freedom, but they reject them. They turn on them and kill them when they find them. So, at last he descends with his troops and takes the captives captive. In a great, bloody war, he overthrows their master and takes them from the Pits by force.
They fight back and resist the rescue. Their grasp on the chains must be broken and their burdens torn from their backs.
Only then, at last, as they are herded out into the light, do they see the lies they believed. Blinking in the sun, stretching backs long bent, they realize that they are free. Then they turn at last to the king, trembling, bloody hands outstretched. They have slain his servants. They have rebelled against him. The guilt of their rebellion is spread out before them in all its darkness.
The king turns to them. Then they see the truth. The wounds they thought they dealt his servants mark his face and body. The blood on their hands is his, for it was he who came among them in disguise.
They fall down at his feet, the fear too great to think of mercy.
"You are free. Arise, for I have slain your master." The king takes their hands and raises them to their feet. But they cannot stand, but kneel again to swear their service to this king. For, in freedom, without him, they know they would but take up their chains again and find new masters, crueller than before.
The king accepts their fealty and they rise, free to serve their liberator.
"Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience, leading to righteousness."
Romans 6:16
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